With every season and split of the North American League Championship Series, we anticipate, speculate and expect. The seasons rarely pan out exactly as one believes that they will, even the most lauded analysts find themselves surprised by one team or another.

There are the NA giants: Cloud9, Team SoloMid and Counter Logic Gaming. No matter how the giants performed the last time we saw them, there is always an expectation -- an excited chatter that this year they're going to be even better and rocket to the top of the standings. There are always those teams that, going in, everyone expects them to just coast along.

Somehow, every split we are always surprised when one or more of those teams breaks the mold and performs either above and beyond or far below their expected performances. Admittedly, this is what keeps the NA LCS interesting split after split.

There have been some substantial changes to the NA LCS since 2015. Almost every team has gone through at least one major roster change -- staff changes and the like. There was a large influx of Korean imports, including another Korean import from the EU LCS. We are seeing many teams having trouble completely adapting to their new rosters, the new meta and the new challenges that this season is bringing. The majority of the teams have been utterly inconsistent in their performances which, by and large, is something that was not entirely expected this year.

It has been 5 weeks now -- we are already over halfway through the games of the regular season. Do these teams have it together yet? Can the ones who have stayed solidly at the top of the heap remain there? Can the teams struggling to keep their heads above water make a last ditch surge for Playoff contention?

Let's take a look at the ten teams -- what's changed since last year, how are they performing so far and how should we expect them to keep performing?

Editor's Note: Much of this piece has been contextualized primarily over the course of Week 1-5.

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Cloud9

For a long time now, C9 has been considered one of the best teams in the NA LCS. They had the longest running unchanged roster until this past year. Coming into the 2016 season, they have committed to another change. After William "Meteos" Hartman and Lee "Rush" Yoonjae, we now have rookie Jungler, Juan "Contractz" Arturo Garcia stepping into those undeniably large shoes. In addition, C9 has brought on a special coach for their bot lane duo, Jang "Cain" Nuri. There has been a tremendous investment and commitment to proper infrastructure to support the growth and dominance of C9 that while the groundwork had been there before it has only blossomed in 2017. The final change that C9 has made is bringing in a substitute top laner, Jeon "Ray" Jiwon who they seem to be committing to growing under the tutelage of Jung "Impact" Eunyeong.

This year. there is no safety net of calling on Hai "Hai" Lam if things get dire but C9 hasn't needed it. The majority of the first half of the split they were undefeated in series score and have, as of now, only fallen to TSM and Phoenix1. We have seen Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen, Andy "Smoothie" Ta and Impact becoming more integral and loud voices for the team. Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi has remained a consistent pillar for the team and Contractz is talented, hungry and adaptable. This iteration of C9 is far more consistent than the one that we saw in 2015 and 2016.

It appears they have found the solid winning formula again.

Despite the fact that C9 has suffered two losses, they couldn't come at a better time. It is easy for a winning team to become complacent. After all, the nearly undefeated Immortals failed to secure first place in playoffs last year. C9 losing two series in the middle of the split is not cause for alarm. It is clear that Impact was compromised after the first losses and that continued to affect his performance going forward. We saw on the player cams that for one of the first times Jensen was visibly upset by how games were going. There are undeniable issues with this team as there are with all teams. C9 has consistently been criticized for lack of focus on achieving first turret blood and their early game has periodically been shown as a weak point. These are not problems that are impossible to overcome.

However, it is important to remember the mentality of players in this organization. In the past, Sneaky has been vocal about the importance of losing. If you win all the time, you don't practice as hard; you become complacent and cocky. These losses are more than enough to set a fire under C9 and propel them into holding a steadfast grip on first place.

Counter Logic Gaming

Counter Logic Gaming is a team that has made no changes to their roster. Despite receiving a lot of criticism, especially toward their mid laner, Choi "Huhi" Jaehyun, they have elected to keep the same roster. This is not the first year that we have seen CLG struggling, barely in the middle of the pack. They should have all the pieces to be successful. Their teamwork has always been considered virtually unparalleled in NA and you see the players consistently taking responsibility for how the game turns out and never casting blame on any one player.

CLG has always had a strong team identity in the past and it appears that this is something they are now struggling with. Zaqueri "Aphromoo" Black stated in recent weeks that the team is struggling in this new split as the identity of their team changes. In previous splits, CLG relied heavily on Aphromoo and Jake "Xmithie" Puchero to initiate fights. They have now started to rely more on Trevor "Stixxay Hayes. This has been a struggle for CLG all split. They had issues adapting to playing without Aphromoo on picks like Alistar.

They have needed to find their way to innovate and make the meta work for them even if it is a game changer. They have always been good at this in the past, but it seemed to take an inordinate about of time for the team to adjust to this season. There was really no excuse with the fact that they have kept their entire roster the same.

This split, Huhi has again proven to be a double edged sword. However, an important difference is that we are seeing him opening up to playing assassins. He's very comfortable on these champions and he's become more confident and willing to always be a playmaker. The plays don't always work out, which makes him look inconsistent; however, it is difficult to know if this is wholly Huhi's fault or a bad call on the team's part.

Regardless of when CLG is winning or losing, Huhi's scorelines have shown that he is on champs that he can play well and is comfortable working with. This is something that shouldn't change as CLG work for finding a winning formula in the back half of the split and hope to qualify for playoffs.

Overall, Stixxay and Aphromoo have not been performing at the level that is expected of them after last year. It is fair to say that they have started to find an upward trajectory. In their match against Phoenix1, Aphromoo was a fierce initiator for team fights on Thresh and continued to show promise throughout the series that they did eventually clench the victory in. While Thresh was picked after support champions were heavily targeted during pick/ban, the end result is seeing Aphromoo on a champion that allowed him to fit into the role that he is most comfortable playing for the team and was met with great success. In this same game, we see Darshan "Darshan" Upadhyaya on a carry top laner instead of a tank and he took over the game with his Gangplank.

In conclusion, it is clear that the most important thing for CLG to do is find their own path in this meta. The new identity is a shoe that doesn't fit and they've always been better forging their own way.

Echo Fox

The start of this Split was inconsistent at best for Echo Fox. It's not really a surprise despite the exciting pick up of Jang "Looper" Hyeongseok. The team is again built around Henrik "Froggen" Hansen. Fox has invested heavily in preseason bootcamping and practice for this roster, but there was not an immediate pay off when this split started. While Froggen and Looper are playing consistently well and Matthew "Akaadian" Higginbotham has been extremely impressive with taking the majority of first bloods of the games that he has played in, this team has struggled to make it work.

They are, by all accounts, the best early game team in North America; however, they were struggling in mid and late game to close out on leads that they would get through the laning phase. One of the major factors of this is a lack of coordination and communication with top laner, Looper. Although he's played well, he was an island and his teleports were often poorly timed or otherwise incorrectly executed. This is an issue that has been very clearly worked on over the first half of the split and we are seeing the team begin to reap the benefits. In the series against TSM, they were able to effectively use Akaadian's strengths as a strong, aggressive early jungler and couple it with the consistency of their bot lane, Froggen's excellent command of the map and Looper's iconic Singed.

Fox is, of course, not without their issues, but they have a lot of momentum going forward and their communication seems to be something that is improving dramatically. If this team is able to find consistency, they will become a force to be reckoned with by the end of the split and they are certainly not the struggling Echo Fox that was nearly relegated last year.

FlyQuest

When it comes to FlyQuest, most experts agreed that there was not much to be expected of this team coming into the Spring Split. There were three members who many believe should have retired, and in the case, believing Hai should have retired. There are two members who had very mixed experiences in their time previously in the NA LCS and very limited success. By all accounts, FlyQuest should be at the bottom of the pile. However, whether it is the fact they were underestimated or that Hai's shotcalling once again is powerful enough to make up for other deficits a team might have, FlyQuest has shocked many with their outstanding performance thus far.

One of the major surprises this Split has been Galen "Moon" Holgate. Moon struggled last year immensely and did not find much success throughout his time in the NA LCS. However, he is now showing himself to be an extremely strong contender. On NRG, Moon's KDA was 2.9. So far this split, his overall stats are massively improved with a 4.3 KDA.

What has caused this change? Is it simply that he became better? He has been a hard worker even when he was struggling, but it is undeniable that he has shown that this team environment and Hai's leadership has allowed him to translate his scrimmage and solo queue performances onto the stage and propels FlyQuest forward.

What might be less surprising is that Hai has proven to have a vital role in the success of FlyQuest. He brings experienced leadership and shotcalling to the table. He's proven time and time again to be great at helping maintain a positive team atmosphere and provide the support for his teammates that they need to be successful. His mind for the game is still one of the best and he's dauntless in chasing for wins no matter how dire the circumstances are in a game. This is, of course, with the caveat that Hai's shotcalling is often high risk, high reward, but it is always decisive. It's difficult to decipher the line to walk on how FlyQuest should approach this because their decisive shotcalling is most certainly their most important strength.

Similar to C9, FlyQuest has suffered very few losses and even so these losses are not exactly cause for alarm. FlyQuest appears to have a solid support ecosystem for their players. They were able to compete adequately against C9, the best team in the league currently, and even in that loss they showed immense resilience and identity. This is important going forward into the backend of the Split and preparing for Playoffs.

Immortals

Immortals is a far cry from the Immortals of 2016. The lone remaining member is Eugene "Pobelter" Park. The rest of the team as spread throughout the NA LCS and, of course, Heo " Huni" Seunghoon has moved to the LCK to join SKT1.

There were not quite the same expectations that we had of Immortals after their dominating first split. After all, their Summer split was admittedly a disappointment when all was said and done and they had failed to qualify for Worlds. We now see Joshua "Dardoch" Hartnett joining in Immortals and it appears that he has adapted very well to the team atmosphere and is a positive influence on the team; this is an important change for Dardoch.

Over the off season, Immortals also acquired Korean talent Kim "Olleh" Joosung and rookie Cody "Cody Sun" Sun. Lastly, the team is rounded out with the pick up of Lee "Flame" Hojong, who is known for his performances on CJ Entus Blaze, but has recently been stuck as a substitute on LGD Gaming in the LPL and while he was more recently on Longzhu in Korea, he was benched for a good portion of his time with the team. This acquisition brought with it a lot of hype and excitement, but admittedly, Immortals has had a slow start this Split.

Like many of the teams in the NA LCS, Immortals has also struggled with consistency and communication. They are working on making sure that Flame and Olleh are able to communicate effectively with the team. Dardoch has indicated that the members know basic game terminology; however, initially it is usually difficult for non-native speakers to adapt to follow calls toward team fight and neutral objectives.

Flame and Olleh both had a slow start to the split. Flame's performances were downright disappointing when he was expected to make a big impact on the scene. Cody Sun was under-performing most of the beginning of the split while his support Olleh had been playing extremely defensive. In this trough of performance, Dardoch, while volatile and sometimes overaggressive, has typically been playing at the level expected and Pobelter has, for the most part, been playing on par for the expectations of an NA mid laner.

We have seen an upward trajectory for the bot lane as Olleh seems to find his footing on Immortals, playing more aggressively and comfortably. As he has become more comfortable, there's an upward trend with his lane partner, Cody Sun as well. Flame seems to still be struggling somewhat in his lane, but the communication appears to be better in team fights and around objectives as the split progresses.

This team still has a lot of work to do if they want to make it through Playoffs, but from what we've seen, the players are committed to working together to find the winning formula and improve their overall coordination.

In short, they have massive potential and we just have to see if the pieces will fall into place for them.

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Stay tuned for Part 2.

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Images courtesy of LolEsports Flickr.